At five in the morning the first round of fans already started trickling in.
More than 200,000 fans are expected for Sunday’s Florida Panther championship parade. The parade starts at 11 a.m., although people arrived hours earlier to snag a parking spot, find a good spot to camp or even see a player in person.
“I arrived here at 7.40am and the road was already closed.” said Elena Cohan, who left her Redland home with her husband at 5 a.m
Their goal was to get a prime spot at the Elbo Room, a fan-favorite bar where a sea of red, blue and white gathered and created a stir before the parade. Cohan said her husband uses a wheelchair, so they wanted to get a good parking spot.
Before the parade, Fort Lauderdale officials had urged people to arrive well before the parade’s scheduled start, in anticipation of road closures and congestion. Water taxis began departing at 7 a.m. from the Broward County Convention Center, Downtown Las Olas Business District and Enhanced Water Taxi Services, and shuttles from the Heron Parking Garage also began offering rides to the parade ground at 7 a.m.
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By 8am, traffic to the Las Olas parking garage was already full, and by 9am, the parking garage was already full.
Geo Lubbers, 18, sat on striped towels with his friends, Farrah Sorhage, 17, and Syler Galmiche, 16, facing the ocean. They had even marked their territory by sticking a large Panthers flag in the sand.
The trio is from Fort Lauderdale and arrived at the beach around 7:30 a.m.
“I want to see the Cup,” said Lubbers, wearing a blue Aleksander Barkov shirt. “I started going to the games four years ago. That really motivated me to want to play hockey.”
Rainy Stetler, who is also from Fort Lauderdale, brought her daughter and granddaughter to the parade.
“I’ve followed (the Panthers) for years, and to see what they’ve been through is just, it breaks my heart,” she said through tears. “But now that they’ve won the Cup, it’s definitely time to celebrate.”
Christina and Bill Curran are from Plantation with their son Cameron, but spent Saturday evening at the Four Seasons Hotel on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. Normally the plantation would be about a 30-minute drive to Fort Lauderdale, but the family’s overnight stay helped them avoid the traffic and crowds without having to wake up before dawn, instead allowing them to take a comfortable walk to make the beach.
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“I think it’s great that we can all come together to support and show love and support to the team that fought for the cup before us,” said Christina Curran.
“We owe it to them,” Bill Curran said of being at the parade.
